Jack McDevitt's Academy series features Priscilla Hutchins, a starship captain, and Gregory Macallister, a cynical journalist, who are both involved with a space development agency whose funds are being cut as Earth's government struggles with the effects of long neglected environmental problems. The Academy's starships find that planets within reach are almost devoid of intelligent life. However, scientists discover a series of extinct civilizations in a pattern that suggests that a menace from the heart of the galaxy periodically sweeps through Earth's star region with deadly effects. The series consists, thus far, of six novels, several of which have been Nebula finalists. They are, in order, as follows: The Engines of God, Deepsix, Chindi, Omega, Odyssey, and Cauldron.
From the book jacket: The universe has been explored, and humanity has all but given up on finding other intelligent life. Then an alien satellite orbiting a distant star sends out an unreadable signal. Is it the final programmed gasp of an ancient, long-dead race? Or the first greeting of an undiscovered life form? Academy starship captain Priscilla' Hutchins and the once-maligned Contact Society are about to learn the answers to more questions than they could possibly conceive of asking.